Dead Island PC update: it’s still broken

Dead Island has been out for two days, and has already received a number of …

Dead Island launched on the PC with some glaring technical problems, and there have been at least two patches pushed out to the game since release. After hearing that the game should be in a more polished state, I grabbed some friends, set up a LAN in a buddy's living room, and thought I'd write a follow-up story after testing the co-op and seeing how the game ran on a number of systems. Sadly, the problems with the game's stability on the PC persist.

After borrowing a friend's monitor and adjusting the game's resolution... the game crashed. When I relaunched, the old resolution was still selected. Trying to change it caused more crashes, until the adjustment finally took. (And I'm not sure what I did differently to get it working.) The game's graphics still look oversaturated and washed out on all the systems I've seen it played on, and there is a weird graphical glitch that takes place whenever you walk over water. And these are just the things I noticed after a few minutes of play.

The worst part is that multiplayer on the PC seems to be dead completely. The game's official Twitter feed is claiming that it's due to overcrowding on the servers, but I was unable to find other players, or even play with my friends in LAN mode. We were unable to get any aspect of the mutiplayer experience working.

The evening wasn't a complete waste of time: I was able to watch a new player explore the world for an hour or so. His verdict after I quizzed him about the game? Movement is weird, the graphics could be better, the inventory makes no sense, but the combat and game itself are good fun. "This game was made for co-op," he told me, and I tend to agree. Sadly, it's impossible to play that way at the moment.

There is a good game hiding in here, and the console gamers seem to be playing it happily based on the e-mails and comments I've received. We will continue to wait for more patches.

I was able to sort of get coop working last night by running hamachi. One of my friends was able to join my game but the other was not. Hopefully, the promised patch for tomorrow will resolve most of the rest of these issues. I'd hate for the game to be unplayable for a month like Black Ops.

Yep, it's definitely needing some love. However, instead of getting mad about another apparently rushed title, I'm going back to Deus Ex and Space Marine while waiting for Hard Reset. Life is good in the PC lane lately.

Frankly, I simply dont buy games at launch anymore. I'll wait 3 months minimum to let a game soak, period. Hell I didnt even buy Portal 2 at launch and frankly I have a hell of a lot of faith in Valve and a few other devs to push out a quality product.

Ugh man am I glad I got this for the 360; not like that doesn't have its issues either. For instance:A: No matter how hard I try; I can not make a private room for my game. People keep dropping in and out, and it's very frustrating to see "some random dude connect" "some random dude disconnect" every 3 minutes.B: The animations are clunky, for instance I try and fill up a gas tank and put it in the bed of a truck. Instead what happens is the my character sits there for about 15 seconds and all of a sudden the gas tank materializes in the back of the truck...C: THE FUCKING QUEST SYSTEM IS BROKEN AS SHIT, half of the quests lead me to a spot only to tell me to turn back around, and that my objective is 50m away even only to tell me to go back to where I came, wtf! Items break too easily, I don't know about you but when I pick up a pipe; I expect it to last more than 20 damn swings. Yeah items do degrade which I can understand, but it's almost as bad as Dead Rising which is still bullshitE: A lot of fetch quests, "plz help my girlfriend is dying and needs pills and bandages" "We need you to turn on power for lighthouse" "We need you to find some fucking juice boxes because people are thirsty" "We need you... WE NEED YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP! If I wanted to play repetitive fetch quests than I would play a fucking MMO not drive in a practically invincible truck and drive half way across the island to pick up some fucking juice boxes for 700XP.

Yep, it's definitely needing some love. However, instead of getting mad about another apparently rushed title, I'm going back to Deus Ex and Space Marine while waiting for Hard Reset. Life is good in the PC lane lately.

Seriously who has time for shit like this.... I can barely play the games i have thanks to being an older gamer =)

Yep, it's definitely needing some love. However, instead of getting mad about another apparently rushed title, I'm going back to Deus Ex and Space Marine while waiting for Hard Reset. Life is good in the PC lane lately.

Seriously who has time for shit like this.... I can barely play the games i have thanks to being an older gamer =)

Heh, I'm an "older gamer" too - but as a software developer I spend 12-18 hours in front of a computer a day, and that beautiful steam icon is never far...

I heard about the updates on Penny Arcade this morning, and was wondering if Ben would cover it. Sad to hear that it still needs a lot of work. Apparently the "way too early to release" build has been replaced with the "somewhat too early to release" build.

I'll play this game on Xbox whenever I get around to it. Even there I hear there are glitches and problems. Seems like the perfect game to wait to play until it is around $10. Hopefully by then they'll have it patched up and working on all systems.

I respect the idea to give greater coverage to PC gaming. But it's getting kind of frustrating (recent examples I can recall include this and Brink) to constantly hear about the problems associated with PC gaming rather than hearing talk about the game itself. We get very distorted views of your impressions of games because of the hassles some of these PC games go through with bugs and general crashing issues.

But if you bothered to try games out on consoles at least in addition to PC, we'd be hearing about what you think of the game, not about all the problems and bugs you're encountering trying to run the game.

I think this is a huge flaw with this new focus on covering PC games at the expense of console versions. You mess around way more with trying to fix a game or wait for a patch rather than just playing the game and seeing what it's about. While I haven't played a lot of the game so far on 360, I haven't encountered any game-crashing bugs or anything like that. Of course I am early on so I probably just haven't encountered it yet, but at least I can play the game properly so far.

This is part of the reason I don't bother PC gaming much these days, even though I have a rig built for it. I can just enjoy the gameplay without having to focus on all the hassles of getting the game to run properly in the first place. I know I'm not getting the best graphical quality or perhaps all the features and capabilities including modding, but that's a trade-off I can live with. And if a mod comes out on PC that totally makes it worth playing that version, then I can always pick it up later to try that out. At least I'm enjoying the game I paid for, in a way I like to use it.

If PC gaming was as easy and comfortable as console gaming, I'd probably do it a lot more. But I enjoy sitting on my couch using my HDTV with the sound system rather than sitting at a desk with a LCD monitor using computer speakers (although they're pretty nice anyway). And I like using the Xbox 360 controller rather than mouse and keyboard these days. I feel like I'm getting arthritis from using computers all the time. I probably have poor posture.

I'm just rambling now but anyway, my entire point is that I would like to hear impressions of the games too, not just about all the problems associated with PC gaming. I mean I'm not saying don't give that type of PC coverage, but just not at the expense of talking about the game itself. I don't think it's fair to judge a game overall just because a version on a platform is flawed, without bothering to check how it is on another version. Especially if the other versions run without the same problems. Yes, we should know about this sort of thing, but that shouldn't be the only thing being discussed repeatedly.

I got a copy of Dead Island from a friend as a gift because he wanted to do some co-op and I wanted nothing to do with the game. We were able to play together but that's as far as things got. Every time a third player attempt to join our game all we saw was "failed to connect" with no explanation beyond that. We tried several times to get two different people into our game and got nowhere.

As for the game itself, it's ugly. The trees and the textures on the zombies are awful (and everyone has these weird bulbous bug eyes). I'm sure that's down to the Chrome engine (which has never been on the top of the gaming heap). I still don't understand people wanting to sell you weapons and items while they are in the middle of a zombie infestation that threatens their very lives (capitalism trumps all, I guess). The inventory system will give the OCD afflicted nightmares, it makes no sense at all. Quests aren't handled very well. If you take on more than a couple at a time you'll be quickly overwhelmed and forget everything you're supposed to be doing (and while we're talking about quests how many "get person X to locations Y" quests do we need? Not to mention that half the islands population seems to need insulin but weren't smart enough to keep some with them). And there isn't any sense of danger since dying just takes a small amount of your cash (what? why?) and respawns you very near where you went down.

But despite all that the game is still a great deal of fun when you and a friend are beating zombies to death with flaming baseball bats and stomping on them like you're initiating them into a gang. Sadly those moments go away all to quickly and then you're left to go and find Tommy's insulin once more.

I respect the idea to give greater coverage to PC gaming. But it's getting kind of frustrating (recent examples I can recall include this and Brink) to constantly hear about the problems associated with PC gaming rather than hearing talk about the game itself. We get very distorted views of your impressions of games because of the hassles some of these PC games go through with bugs and general crashing issues.

Frankly, I don't have the time to extensively play every version of the game, and when possible we're going to focus on the PC version. Other sites are covering the console versions and doing it well, so the information is getting out there. I realize this isn't the best answer, but I think it's the right move for us right now. I'm not interested in covering every version of every game.

For the people complaining about the lack of console reviews, you can easily go to every other game review publisher out there for those. Very rarely do they ever provide a PC review, which leaves PC gamers with very little places that we can go to get reviews that are meaningful to us.

Frankly, I don't have the time to extensively play every version of the game, and when possible we're going to focus on the PC version. Other sites are covering the console versions and doing it well, so the information is getting out there. I realize this isn't the best answer, but I think it's the right move for us right now. I'm not interested in covering every version of every game.

Thank the maker. It's about time someone remembered us PC folk, and I wouldn't shed a single tear if nobody ever made another "multi-platform" game. PC FTW!

Not to nitpick, but there are dozens (if not hundreds, by this point) of sites that offer reviews and impressions of the console versions of games and often just reprint the console reviews in their PC review columns. You're complaining because one site has chosen to skew things the other way? There are other sites besides Ars that do game reviews and are more than happy to cater to the console-loving crowd.

Discussing the bugs IS giving an impression of the game to some degree. In the course of covering a PC game it would be dishonest to not address the bugs and quirks. If the bugs and quirks are so intrusive as to disrupt the game play then I would expect the focus of the article to be on that aspect of the game.

If you read articles discussing games that do not have these bugs at launch you generally get a decent review of the actual game.

I think this is a huge flaw with this new focus on covering PC games at the expense of console versions. You mess around way more with trying to fix a game or wait for a patch rather than just playing the game and seeing what it's about.

This isn't a "PC" problem. This is a problem with developers putting out garbage. And that deserves to be covered.

Pretty much every other gaming media outlet focuses on consoles, and has ignored the PC for years. You have plenty of places to go if you want to hear about the console version of the game.

Ars Technica is offering something different. If you want the same old same old gaming coverage, you can get that anywhere else.

If you make a few changes to the "Video.scr" file (yes .scr for some damn reason), things look very nice. The defaults are crap, as usual with a rushed port, no AA, or Anis, etc... set to read only after you edit it, or the game will go back to the original settings. These work great with a 6970;FSAA(4)Filtering("AnisotropicTrilinear")ShadowMapSize(4096)SpotShadowMapSize(4096)MaterialQuality(0)FXQuality(3)FXFadeLevel(0)WaterQuality(0)GrassQuality(0)EnvQuality("FullDynamic")ShaderPath(5)VSync()

If you make a few changes to the "Video.scr" file (yes .scr for some damn reason), things look very nice. The defaults are crap, as usual with a rushed port, no AA, or Anis, etc... set to read only after you edit it, or the game will go back to the original settings. These work great with a 6970;FSAA(4)Filtering("AnisotropicTrilinear")ShadowMapSize(4096)SpotShadowMapSize(4096)MaterialQuality(0)FXQuality(3)FXFadeLevel(0)WaterQuality(0)GrassQuality(0)EnvQuality("FullDynamic")ShaderPath(5)VSync()

My PC is a ramshackle arrangements of parts new, old, borrowed, and of unknown origin, sitting in a fragile configuration in an dented and poorly vented case caked in years of oily dust. My buggy and heavily infected os struggles to give me usable and crash-free performance for more than a few minutes at a time. When I do manage to make it work, I sit in a half-broken office chair that I found behind a dumpster, before a tiny desk barely big enough to fit the gummy mousepad that hangs off the side. The keyboard's E alternately double taps and doesn't register. My tinny 1994 speakers sputter out the sound at me through frequently disconnecting wires, converting every game's soundtrack into a vintage radio broadcast. I've place the whole setup in the closet space beneath the stairs with a bare incandescent bulb as the only light source, though I generally leave it off.

My console, on the other hand, is projected in 1080p on a 20ftx30ft wall in my private theater. My full THX cert system deafens the neighbors, though they do not complain out of sheer respect for the fidelity. My gigantic velvet couch has my very own ass grove to fit me like a glove. The servants please me with foot and scalp massages as I play on my daily-cleansed and flawless controller. They refuse to do so in the computer room since "it is too smelly".

Why on Earth then, I ask you, would I bother to play games like this on the PC?

It's good the Ars is sticking to its PC roots in game reviews, when possible. I'm sort of an odd man out myself in that 90% of my own gaming is on PC- I don't even own a PS3 or Xbox.

With that in mind, I blame these sorts of problems not so much the result of a rushed to market game, but rather that the assumption is that you'll have an always-on broadband connection to download multi-gigabyte patches. The programmers and testers can do a shoddy job and just release a patch or 10 later.

I was dumbfounded when I bought a popular game at retail, on physical media, and Steam ended up downloading the whole game anyways. I have what is considered, in my neck of the woods, broadband, at a paltry 4Mb/s, and it was 45 minutes after the game had already installed from the DVD before I could even play the game! To think- I bought it on disc just to avoid sitting at a download screen for ever.

Added to this is the specter of metered billing or caps hanging over people's heads. Just think: SuperISP imposes a 100GB/month cap, and half of that is used up just from bloody game patches from 10 or so games (or one game, 10 or so times, as is more likely the case), regardless of whether it's PC or PS3 or whatever. Before broadband was prevalent, these sorts of shenanigans would not have been tolerated. Maybe once we're paying by the GB for downloads or getting precariously close to an already expensive data cap, we'll not tolerate it once again.

Ugh man am I glad I got this for the 360; not like that doesn't have its issues either. For instance:A: No matter how hard I try; I can not make a private room for my game. People keep dropping in and out, and it's very frustrating to see "some random dude connect" "some random dude disconnect" every 3 minutes.B: The animations are clunky, for instance I try and fill up a gas tank and put it in the bed of a truck. Instead what happens is the my character sits there for about 15 seconds and all of a sudden the gas tank materializes in the back of the truck...C: THE FUCKING QUEST SYSTEM IS BROKEN AS SHIT, half of the quests lead me to a spot only to tell me to turn back around, and that my objective is 50m away even only to tell me to go back to where I came, wtf! Items break too easily, I don't know about you but when I pick up a pipe; I expect it to last more than 20 damn swings. Yeah items do degrade which I can understand, but it's almost as bad as Dead Rising which is still bullshitE: A lot of fetch quests, "plz help my girlfriend is dying and needs pills and bandages" "We need you to turn on power for lighthouse" "We need you to find some fucking juice boxes because people are thirsty" "We need you... WE NEED YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP! If I wanted to play repetitive fetch quests than I would play a fucking MMO not drive in a practically invincible truck and drive half way across the island to pick up some fucking juice boxes for 700XP.

Whew, hope someone found that amusing

The only thing I agree with is the fetch quests. A. Setting up a private game is easy. Put your visibility to private and put the public slots to 0. No one has been able to join me. The game still tells me that others are around and I can join their game though.B. The only animation I find somewhat weird is when you get knocked down by the big thug zombie. It makes me dizzy everytime it happens.C. Maybe you have your waypoint set weird. I find that before each quest if you load up the map and set your waypoint on the red marker, I have no issues.D. Upgrade your character and they won't degrade so quickly. I like that weapons degrade and deform after bashing in some zombie faces. It adds a bit of realism to a very unrealistic game. E. So ignore the side quests. I've only been doing them if the reward is something good and I just started act 2 and am a level 13 already.

Overall I am having a blast with this game on the 360 and will eventually buy it on the PC once its fixed.

My PC is a ramshackle arrangements of parts new, old, borrowed, and of unknown origin, sitting in a fragile configuration in an dented and poorly vented case caked in years of oily dust. My buggy and heavily infected os struggles to give me usable and crash-free performance for more than a few minutes at a time. When I do manage to make it work, I sit in a half-broken office chair that I found behind a dumpster, before a tiny desk barely big enough to fit the gummy mousepad that hangs off the side. The keyboard's E alternately double taps and doesn't register. My tinny 1994 speakers sputter out the sound at me through frequently disconnecting wires, converting every game's soundtrack into a vintage radio broadcast. I've place the whole setup in the closet space beneath the stairs with a bare incandescent bulb as the only light source, though I generally leave it off.

My console, on the other hand, is projected in 1080p on a 20ftx30ft wall in my private theater. My full THX cert system deafens the neighbors, though they do not complain out of sheer respect for the fidelity. My gigantic velvet couch has my very own ass grove to fit me like a glove. The servants please me with foot and scalp massages as I play on my daily-cleansed and flawless controller. They refuse to do so in the computer room since "it is too smelly".

Why on Earth then, I ask you, would I bother to play games like this on the PC?

lol sucks to be you i have a 1 year old gaming rig that is = to 15 of your console guess what my full thx cert on my pc is just as good as yours and my 1920*1080p projector is just as good as your theater and if you had that good of a set you should have reverb panels in the room otherwise your just wasting that sound.